on emails

It's something that's been on my mind for quite some time now. I know with this whole electronic, extra-fast, extra-conventient modern age we all have less time even though we have more appliances to make our lives easier and to have more time. Everyone knows it, but no-one is doing anything about it.

Certainly I've complained to many of you how I miss writing letters (real paper letters that one can touch, feel, put next to oneself and know that the authors hands also touched it), and I really do miss writing long emails. Somehow nowadays whenever I write to people it's a lot more goal-oriented, such as - organising a get-together, organising a phone call, asking for a specific favour or advice... I find myself very rarely writing an email/letter for the sake of writing one - to share my thoughts and feelings, to ponder some questions that's been on my mind, to find out how the other person is... And whenever the opportunity presents itself I am usually thrilled.

An easy way would be to blame the world and to say that people don't reply to me when I do write longer emails... which is partially true. But I guess I've also given up on it and when before, whenever I gotten an email I would reply to it almost straight away... now I usually leave it for a couple of days or weeks even, before I find the time to respond. Sometimes it has to do with time... but sometimes I just feel that very intense, regular communication is something to be avoided for fear of "not sure what". It's been a self-reflective weekend so far, you see...

A part of me realises that when everyone is so far away, everyone has their own lives to live and not much time for anything outside that. However it's not just an issue of geographical separation. Even when we lived in Melbourne I found that we would all see each other a couple of times a year, sometimes more often... so I think it's not just to do with everyone being in the same place, although that helps.

I believe this age of emails, googles, facebooks is on one hand doing a great service for people to be able to stay in touch... but is this "staying in touch" the same quality as the old fashioned "staying in touch"? It feels like trying to compare on one hand sitting in a little cafe on a piazza in Venice on a warm evening, sipping wine and overlooking one of the canals, and on the other sitting in an italian restaurant somewhere else in the world and looking at a photo of a venetain canal on the wall. Both might be pleasant, but it's only that one is that so much better.